By Don Griswold

Using digital technology to pursue global tax evaders and other corrupt financial actors was a much-discussed topic at last month’s International Anticorruption Conference—the largest and most influential assembly of its kind for nearly 40 years. Mind-boggling complexity and opacity characterize much of the “planning” that some multinational corporations, billionaires, and global criminals have used in recent years to hide $50 trillion in wealth from government authorities and to evade or avoid $480 billion in tax each year.

Leaders distilled the conference’s key findings into an 11-point “Washington Declaration” that included this conclusion: “Governments should enhance digital governance and regulatory mechanisms based on the principles of transparency, accountability and integrity, including for artificial intelligence, blockchain and distributed ledger technology, and big data.”